Chinese Hackers use NSA PRISM Monitoring for Malware Campaign

The interwebs were set afire with the news of the NSA monitoring program when whistle blower Edward Snowden released information on Prism. Well, never missing a good opportunity to exploit people, it seems Chinese hackers have jumped into the fray using the NSA monitoring scare as a source for a malicious e-mail campaign dubbed “CIA Prism Watchlist”.

When former NSA employee Edward Snowden exposed the US government’s large electronic monitoring program called “Prism“, some called him a hero, and others a traitor and a spy.

To me the jury is still out on him, yes what the government was doing was very wrong and violates constitutional rights. But Snowden turning to the Chinese for help has left many scratching their heads. If someone was looking for a country that supports and defends free speech, I don’t think China would be on the top ten of any list.

And again, though I don’t support what the government was doing, many people simply hand over personal and very intimate details about their lives to perfect strangers on a daily basis to feed our social media addiction.

Well, never one to miss an opportunity, it seems Chinese hackers are taking advantage of the government monitoring scare that has swept across the nation. According to The Register, the Chinese hacker group behind the NetTraveler attacks is using the opportunity to spread malicious e-mails titled “CIA’s Prism Watchlist”.

Attached to the badly worded e-mail is a Word Document named ‘Monitored List 1.doc’, “containing malware designed to exploit the same vulnerability (CVE-2012-0158).”

For more information, check out the 9bplus blog that originally discovered the e-mail in an VirusTotal upload.